Buying and Selling Online Schools: The Unusual Career of Michael Clifford (Part 2)

SM: What kind of projects were John Spurling and Brian Miller giving you when you volunteered at the University of Phoenix?

MC: I offered to get coffee and help Brian in any way possible. He would kick ideas off me and I would go out and research them. Brian inspired me to go out and buy a school. During that time, I had an idea to use satellite cable TV to teach courses over the TV. I started a company called TeleUniversity, and I raised a million dollars from some bankers in New York. I got the company started and needed another million, and they invested again. I realized I was not a very good manager. I had good ideas and strategy but was not disciplined as a manager, and I needed somebody to handle that for me. I recruited a dear friend, Scott Turner, and asked him to be CEO of the startup.

Scott told me he would do it if I kept raising money for them and never came to the office so that he could run the business. I agreed, and we had a deal. Scott started running TeleUniversity and I recruited another fellow named Wayne Clugston to merge his company with ours. It was very attractive to us, but it still took me a year to talk him into it. The result of that merger was Bridgepoint, which I believe was the most successful IPO in 2009.

SM: Right now if you look at the US economy, there are lots of young people who do not have a lot of experience and don’t have jobs. I have often felt that doing what you have done, volunteering and building up experience through unpaid internships, are great ways of getting people into the water. You are the poster child of that philosophy.

MC: It was hard to do at 41 years old with four kids, two of whom were on their way to college. It was very, very difficult.

SM: How did you support your family?

MC: I did consulting for non-profit organizations to help with fundraising. I also had a small Six Sigma business that was profitable. It was still extremely difficult, and my wife and family went through a lot of sacrifices with me. I had a dream, and when somebody has a dream you can fulfill it.

What you are saying is extremely true. I counsel a lot of 16- to 18-year-olds. I tell them to go do internships because I think the best model is to get the general education done in the first two years of a four-year degree. Go ahead and get that online at a community college which will cost $6,000- $7,000 for two years. If they want to be a lawyer then take the time during those two years to volunteer and go work in a law firm. Whatever profession they want to do, go find a way to volunteer in that career field and get the real life experience. Try it out. Too many kids go through four to five years of college, graduate, and then find out they do not know what they want to do.

SM: This is incredibly problematic. They end up putzing around all over the place with no direction.

MC: That is why I love online education. They can do whatever they want to do for two to three years and get their feet wet. They can then find out if they are passionate about their potential career, and when it comes time to get that focused degree they can make sure they go to the right school for their career.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Buying and Selling Online Schools: The Unusual Career of Michael Clifford
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